Term coined by critic Achille Bonito Oliva to refer to a trend in Italian art, especially painting, of the late 1970s and early 1980s that embraced hand craftsmanship and the pleasure of execution, and that rejected processes aimed at conceptual abstraction. Hallmarks of this movement often included a pastiche of art-historical references. These trends roughly corresponded with Neo-Expressionist tendencies in the United States.
